It's Either Dumb Luck or Karma
by Consuelo Higdon
Summary: /Chaptered/ What happens when a female ninja, a miniature medic, twin terrors, and the self-proclaimed king of the universe somehow end up becoming a team? /TFA Nightbird Frenzy Rumble Scalpel Galvatron/
1. Decisions

Decisions

This was her last test.

Her final opponent stared her down, large and bulky with a large cannon protruding from his chest. Nightbird merely glared back at the Autobot to her side. Clearly he was going to be a different opponent to battle. She had excelled with fighting people armed with stealth or odd special powers, and even took down one of the Wrestlers all on her own. This would be the first time she would fight an opponent with an actual weapon.

Nightbird knew she was ready. Time and again she had been deemed worthy of weapons; sai daggers, nunchaku, shuriken, and two lightsabers. And still she was confined to the Cyber-Ninja Corps and not allowed into battle. What did it take to graduate? She knew she had the power and capability to hold her own in the fight against the Decepticons. Her special power was _teleportation, _Slaggit! That alone should be enough to let Master Yoketron know that she was worthy of going into battle.

But no. Nothing she did was ever good enough for the Master. No matter how many enemies she would floor, no matter how stealthy and elusive she was in battle, she would never be good enough. What was worse, Master Yoketron never told her what she needed to do to be worthy. He had treated her very differently from any of his other students; she could tell. Many a time she had been given more attention than any of the other students, and more training and battles as well. Sometimes she wondered if this was his way of showing affection.

"Remember, my students. This is a hand-to-hand battle simulation. No weapons allowed." Master Yoketron explained. Nightbird wasted no time getting rid of her weapons. Inside, she was moderately relieved; her opponent seemed to only be armed with that cannon of his, and she could tell he was agitated that he wasn't allowed to use it. Nightbird was glad for her irremovable faceplate; her opponent wouldn't see her smirk. Though he seemed to find another thing to complain about.

"Woah woah; where the Pits did she get all those weapons!?" The red Autobot expressed his disapproval; rather rudely, if she may be so bold to state. Nightbird couldn't help but throw a snarky comeback his way.

"Surprised I'm better well-armed than you are?"

"Yes, actually. I _am _surprised. Since when do you give more than one weapon to your students, Master Yoketron?" Nightbird was somewhat surprised at this notion. She had more weapons than the other students? She hadn't noticed; she had yet to be in a battle involving weapons.

"I have my reasons. Nightbird is a special case, Warpath. I plan great things for her, and for another student. As I have already informed her; this is her last test."

Of course. Nightbird should have remembered; she was protoformed and raised specifically for Master Yoketron's little 'special plan' he always told her about. Whatever it was, Nightbird wished he would just get on with it already. Besides, this mention of 'another student' perked her interest. Perhaps he was to be a worthy opponent for her. She was tired of all these tests and battles she had to do.

Not physically, of course; she had learned long ago that she was incapable of feeling pain. Many of the medics that contacted her had suggested that it was a glitch in her wiring, though many a-time Master Yoketron had forbidden them from tampering with her circuitry. Did this 'other student' have the same circuitry? Was she a twin or something? Nightbird decided to lock these questions away in her processor. Perhaps when she graduated she would get an answer out of him.

She had a battle to fight.

"Take up your positions. Begin whenever you feel ready." Master Yoketron commanded from his perch. The arena was a roughly-cut winding shape made of the rocks just outside the Kalis City Limit. This would be easy; just a simple matter of shielding and differencing her position. She took up a fighting stance, and waited.

Warpath charged. Nightbird just stood her ground, her servos balled into fists and her knees bent. Warpath came close enough to bunch her in the face, before she teleported right before his fist made contact. Finding herself a good distance behind him, she jumped up and squatted in mid-air, before extending her stabilizing servo and making contact with a fist of his.

A violent jerk later and she knew she had to grab onto something. Reaching out of a random piece of rock she caught in a split-second, she managed to hold on long enough to stop Warpath's trajectory and keep her from violently smashing into the ground. With her free stabilizing servo, she kicked Warpath in the chinplate, and sprung out of his grip. She crouched onto the side of the cliff for a moment before straightening and bouncing off of it.

A corkscrew maneuver later and she found herself grabbing onto his face and crouching over his upper body. Unsure of what to do in this position, she randomly punched a part of his back and managed to get through his armor plating. There were some wires there, and some of them she knew led to his stabilizing servos. If she could just mess with them a little, then there was a good chance she'd be able to stop him from moving. That would be good; without movement there wasn't much else for him to do, and he'd have to admit defeat.

It didn't take long for Warpath to realize he didn't like having a femme writhing all over him, and grabbed onto her upper torso. His grip was much stronger this time, almost crushing her armor plating into her insides. Clearly he was holding back earlier. She was tossed over to a random side that she didn't know, and nearly crashed into the side of the cliff. Thinking quickly, and knowing there was nothing to hold on to, she collapsed into herself and spun around with the momentum.

When she stretched herself out, her feet made contact with the cliff and she immediately bounced off of it as soon as she felt herself able. Then she ran over to her opponent, him barreling towards her as well. She wasn't sure what would happen when they made contact, but one thing was for sure; neither of them wanted to lose. It was only a matter of time before they made contact and tried to kill each other.

Nightbird found herself overwhelmed by his sheer size and strength. There was a sickening pain in her core, and she soon found herself pinned to the ground, Warpath's chest-cannon prodding her own chest as though it were a surgical tool, and his servos gripping her wrists. For a reason that she knew but couldn't grasp entirely, he was holding her wrists a good deal above the ground, though the twisting motion he did to them let her know that it didn't mean he wasn't just as capable of keeping her down as he would have with her arms on the ground.

She was quick to react though; she transferred the energy in her wrists to her stabilizing servos, and brought one up to a crook in his armor underneath his cannon. She then started pushing him upwards, with all the force she could muster into her stabilizing servo. A pain-filled cry let her know that he was hurting quite a bit, but his grip didn't falter. She'd have to try something else, and now, while she was somewhat in control of the situation.

She knocked her servos upwards and clocked them together, bringing Warpath's with them. The strength on them didn't seem to be enough to make him let go of her, but it did manage to lift his body up a bit. This was good. Now she could slip out from underneath her. But now she had a choice; either she would slip out in front or behind him. The front would put them on equal ground, ready to fight each other for a considerably longer amount of time. Behind would twist him over onto his back and ensure that he lost his grip and that the fight would be over, with her winning. She went behind.

The traction leading her upwards was rather dizzying, as she had expected to land on the ground with Warpath doing a mid-air spin from the force. Instead, he let go almost immediately and simply keeled over a bit from the strain of trying to hold on. But that didn't stop her. It couldn't stop her. She needed to keep moving, she needed to win.

Nightbird made sure she landed on his back instead of the floor. Warpath managed to straighten himself up with her stabilizing servos choking his neck. It wouldn't be long before she'd lose her grip or he pried her off of him. She looked around, immediately catching sight of a stalagmite not too far from where they were in the center of the arena. Focusing on it, she teleported again.

With her body precariously balanced on the tip of the stalagmite, she straightened her squatting legs and jumped at the first red thing she could see. Thankfully Warpath was the only red thing to see for quite a while, and so she managed to land on his back and jolt him towards the floor. This gave an unexpected result, as his cannon ended up getting in the way and cracking his body incorrectly, prompting Nightbird to get off before he suffered any serious damage to his back. Regardless of what was going on, she was always taught not to all-out kill an opponent.

No matter how badly she wanted to.

As soon and Warpath managed to turn himself over to his back and crack his back into its correct position on his own, she took up a battle stance to make sure he wouldn't attack again. He showed no sign of being able to get up anytime soon, so she relaxed her position. Standing up straight, she walked calmly over to him. The game was over. She had won. By her foot, Warpath's agitated expression clearly showed through his own faceplate, his optics glaring at her with scorn and hate. She stepped on his chest and bent over him for good measure, bending just above his cannon.

"Surprised that I'm better at fighting than you?" She echoed from her previous statement. "The game is over now, Warpath, and I won. How does that make you feel, eh? Mister Graduate-Student-Who-Can't-Even-Win-A-Fight-Against-A-Femme." Nightbird couldn't help but taunt those on the ground to fight longer. She always wanted to fight a little bit longer, if only to actually lose for a change. It would be the best day ever if she would only lose. She hated winning so much.

Then she was blasted 10 hics into the air.

Of course, she didn't feel any pain. She never felt pain. All those things that she never got in her life, those were what she wanted most. She wanted to lose, and she wanted to feel pain, and she wanted to feel hated and despised. Too many students smiled at her and wanted to talk to her. Too many people went easy on her. Too many people lost to her. This was the first time she actually lost.

Clearly Master Yoketron wasn't happy with this. By the time she landed, she had caught many reprimands and chastisements from Master Yoketron, all directed at Warpath. There was an argument too. Warpath didn't take any put-downs lightly, it seemed. He always wanted to be right. He always wanted to win in some way.

"You heard her, Master Yoketron! The game was over! Once the game was finished, I used my cannon on her! There's nothing against that in the rule book!"

"You went against your own kind, Warpath. What I don't understand is why you would do something like that?"

There was a pause. Then,

"She beat me is why." Came Warpath's answer. So that was it. He was willing to brutally damage his own kind just because she beat him. Nightbird knew how she should feel about this. She should feel disgusted and appalled that such blatant Decepticon-like behavior was adamant in a student of the Cyber-Ninja Corps. She should feel ashamed of him for resorting to such barbarism in battle. She should feel scared that he was at large.

But she didn't. Instead, she felt… _proud _of him. She was proud that he had enough integrity and fighting spirit to attack anyone who challenged him. She was amused by how he took such a childish notion as 'she beat me' as enough incentive to wound her. And she was even delighted that he had found the right moment to attack her and make her lose for what felt like the first time. Now she knew what she did wrong. Now she knew what she needed to do to truly win a fight. She needed to take a win for a win, and a loss for a loss. She wished there were more people like Warpath in the Autobot Rankings.

"What you did was Decepticon-like Behavior, Warpath. I will not tolerate such disobedience and deliberate attempts to damage or traumatize one of your own. Do you understand, Warpath?"

There was an aggravated sigh from Warpath, but he gave no further argument. Nightbird liked that. He liked how he didn't want to admit to defeat, and always tried to be the one to win. But she was also disappointed. Because even though he didn't want to give in, he was. She got angry at him. Why wasn't he standing up for himself and taking care of what he needed? Why wasn't he telling Yoketron specifically that he wasn't going to comply with what he wanted him to do?

Because that was Decepticon-like Behavior.

"Then do you know what must be done?" Yoketron again. At this, Nightbird had began to rise. She smirked underneath her faceplate, glad that she could not feel pain. Her body was reacting strangely, but it was obedient nonetheless. Her stabilizing servos took a moment to stop shaking and balance her weight, but with enough leverage from the side of the wall she managed to get up.

"I do." Was her first statement. Yoketron and Warpath's attentions were immediately drawn to her. Warpath seemed shocked at her, apparently expecting her to stay down or be dead. She was disappointed. There were so many aspects about him that she had come to like, but there was a disproportionate amount of things she didn't like about him. There was too much Autobot in his Decepticon-like Behavior.

"Get back down, ya glitch-head!"

"You are in no position to be standing up, Nightbird."

"Shut yer traps! I'm not going to take any orders from either of you." Nightbird snapped at them, this time keeping her own leverage and not relying on the Cliffside anymore. Her servos stopped shaking and she was in complete control of her own body. She was just fine. She didn't need anyone else's help.

"What, did I blow you in the head or something!?"

"No. I just finally learned something."

"Oh yeah, what?" Nightbird offlined her optics for a moment, making sure she was certain about her decision. She wanted to make absolutely sure this was what she wanted. Yoketron would be fine with his 'other student'. She'd get what she wanted with them, but not here. And when she had finally decided she _was_, in fact, completely and entirely certain, the world around her became tinted a bright, menacing red.

This was shaping up to be a very interesting day for Longarm. First, he had been promoted from and intern to a Security Chief, the next step in the Autobot Intelligence Agency. This was good. He was one step closer to his ultimate goal of being the head of Autobot Intelligence. He was never one for the battlefield, he knew. If any of his activities back in Boot Camp were any indication, he was more suitable for trickery and stealth than actually fighting.

Of course, being a Security Chief wasn't exactly the first thing you thought of when you thought of the Autobot Intelligence Agency. But he'd have to learn how to keep his own files safe before exploring the enemy's. Once he learned how to make the documents and information assigned to him completely safeguarded and inaccessible, then he'd be able to go one step further and become an agent. He had a lot to learn, but still, practice makes perfect.

Of course, he wasn't entirely prepared for what happened next that day. The alarms had sounded off soon after he had finished securing his first practice document; it was a random nonsense drabble, full of random words strung together with no meaning whatsoever. So the first thing he thought of when the alarms for the Autobot Intelligence Agency began to sound was that someone was here to steal his document. Which he didn't understand completely, since it was just nonsense, but he had been trained to take every document, no matter how random, as seriously as if it were his spark.

Longarm decided to delete his document in a fit of panic, which was his first mistake. He should have locked it, or saved it into a secure area, or at least have transferred the data within it to his processor. But he was in plain sight in a large connector room, full of somewhat-trivial data the Autobot Intelligence Agency had gathered over the years. He wasn't supposed to be here in the first place... So why was he?

He'd think about that later. Right now he needed to get out of here and get himself to a safer location. Running through the maze-like hallways as well as though he had been born there, he was completely intent on getting to the center of the Intelligence agency. Who knows how dangerous this intruder could be? He wasn't built for battle; he was built for extension and assistance. He was built for stealth and nothing more. Those who were built for both stealth and battle were Cyber-Ninjas.

How ironic that, as soon as he began thinking of Cyber-Ninja's, he had realized that the intruder was, in fact, a Cyber-Ninja. And a female one, at that. This took him greatly off-guard, as he had only caught sight of her on the third-to-last turn until the center of the agency. He skidded to an abrupt halt, though not on a dime at all. He almost thought he would collide with her at the rate he was going! But of course, the Cyber-Ninja was more than capable of handling herself, and he merely slipped and fell onto his back from all of his attempts to stop himself.

As for the ninja? Well, she jumped over him and landed perfectly just a few mechanometers from his head. Soon enough he found a strong force placed upon his chassis by the ninja-bot. He stared up at the ninja, and did a double take. This ninja had a large dent on her chestplate and a crack on it as well. The crack on it seemed to be going all over the Autobot Insignia she had, making it seem as though it were specifically done to symbolize something. If he deduced correctly (and he sincerely hoped he was wrong), then the scar upon her Autobot Insignia meant that she had given up life as an Autobot. This only meant on thing:

She wanted to be a Decepticon.

"Tell me where the Space Bridge terminals are and I _might _spare your life." The ninja-bot warned. She dispatched two strange looking weapons from a spot on her wrists, and held on to them in a manner that suggested that she would not hesitate a moment with her decision. Longarm felt a large burst of fear contract his throat. He felt as though he was staring death in the face. The red optics of the femme seemed to burn with the ferocity of the pit.

Perfect.

"Speak!" She demanded of him. He made Longarm's faceplate twist in smile, his consciousness taking control of the situation. Oh yes, he would speak. He would speak and he would tell this femme where the Space Bridge terminals were. He would help this femme fulfill her goal of becoming a Decepticon. They needed someone like her in their rankings anyway.

"Very well, my dear. I will lead you straight to the Decepticon Arena."

This clearly took the femme by surprise, though she did a very good job of masking it. She merely lifted a brow, and stepped off of his chassis. She did no further questioning and allowed him to pick up Longarm's form from the ground. Obedient as well, it seemed. He stood tall and looked straight at her, unmoving. This seemed to draw out a reaction from the Ninja.

"Are you planning on tricking me? Do you wish to send me to the authorities, or will you arrest me as an authority yourself?" She said in a reprimanding, regal tone. She turned her body sideways, holding her three-pronged weapons tight in her hand, but still low and relaxed. She seemed confident of her abilities and sure that she would win whatever fight came up. If he could, he would have smiled with his own face.

But then again, he didn't have one.

"On the contrary, my dear femme," The look the femme placed upon her optics betrayed her faceplate. Her sheer astonishment and fear was clearly visible, but it was quickly replaced by what he could perceive as a menacing smile. He looked down at her from his Decepticon height, glad to be loose and free of the confines of his small Autobot guise. Their red optics both shared the slit that was used as a pupil.

"I intend to _assist _you."


	2. The Doctor

The Doctor

Nightbird was lost.

She should have expected as much from a Decepticon anyway, especially one that was apparently a spy working within the Autobot Intelligence Agency. He had told her that he would 'assist' her, which, in retrospect, probably meant that he would have done _less _than he already did. He went to the trouble of activating a _space bridge _for her and Transwarp her here! Wherever 'here' was, anyway, since at the moment she hadn't the foggiest clue as to where she was.

From what she could tell, she was either on a very big asteroid, or a Dwarf Planet. The Dwarf Planet idea was supported by the fact that there seemed to be quite a bit of Light Pollution in the atmosphere at present. If she had the time, she probably would have stayed behind to admire the bright oranges and blues made by artificial lights, but she didn't have the time to be idle. She was on a mission… sort of.

From what she had decided, her 'plan' went like this; find a Decepticon Colony, find a team, join said team. What would happen after that was anyone's guess. She wasn't even sure what attributes she'd give a Decepticon team in the first place, since she knew that would be the first thing any team leader would ask. At the moment, she wasn't very attractive to anyone, since she was so banged up from her previous battle (and the fact that she was Transwarped 5 hics above the surface), so the idea of being there just because she was a pretty femme was shot. That, and said wounds were making it difficult for her to walk. Plus she still had that torn-up Autobot Symbol on her chestplate. Nightbird felt like collapsing; this was going to be a lot harder than she initially thought.

Then she heard something. As soon as she could she twisted on her good stabilizing servo and revealed her Sai Daggers. She didn't know what it was, but from what she could discern, it wouldn't be friendly. This _was _Decepticon Territory, after all.

"I know you're out there!" Her call was met with silence. "Do not pretend you are at an advantage because of my physical state!" she retorted, this time trying to taunt whoever (or _what_ever) was trying to sneak up on her. She mentally scoffed at the thought; a Decepticon war 'bot trying to sneak up on a ninja-bot? She would have chuckled at her own thought if the sound hadn't returned. Only this time with a voice.

"I not come out until ve is has the weapons gone!"

Nightbird was hesitant at this demand. The voice in question wasn't exactly very masculine and threatening. In fact, it was actually quite high-pitched and almost annoying, like a malfunctioning computer screen emitting a loud, high-pitched squeal into your Audio Receptors. She was also hesitant because she wasn't entirely sure what the voice wanted; it was muffled slightly by who-knows-what, and the owner of the voice probably wasn't right in head, since it didn't seem to know how syntax worked. She snuck her Sai Daggers back into their hiding place in her servos.

"I have done what you asked, now show yourself!"

"Ah! Ches ches, very good! I keep bargain ve share."

For a moment, she wondered if the 'bot had the power of invisibility. Nothing seemed to be happening; the same purple rocks she had been addressing as her best estimate to where the 'bot was hadn't changed, and nothing had left it. Or perhaps the 'bot was lying and merely stayed behind his hiding place to try and trick her. This idea had begun to make her impatient, and she opened and closed her fingers, trying to see if they would work properly. She would need them to strangle this pompous slagheap for having the gal to lie at her. She lifted her good stabilizing servo.

"STOP!"

That's when she lost her balance. Next thing she knew, she was on her back with her good and bad leg moderately upturned. Trying to get her bearings, she elbowed the ground and pulled herself upward. That's when she saw the thing crawling all over her stabilizing servos. If she didn't have a splitting processor-ache, she would have tried to squirm away. She decided to entertain her fear another way; she screamed.

The thing on her legs transformed in its panic. Now it looked like some sort of small communications device. She took this as her chance to squirm on her own, despite the Energon in her helm pulsating like mad. If she could just get away from the thing before…

The thing transformed again, this time back into the shape it had when she found it crawling all over her. The thing resumed its crawling, jumping onto her armor and tapping its many appendages constantly until it finally managed to get to her faceplate. The thing looked absolutely horrid; it had large, beady red eyes that seemed to pore straight through her helm and into her very spark. From her closer inspection he had a very strange chassis, somewhat reminiscent of an insect. Perhaps a spider? It certainly had enough appendages to be an arachnid of some kind. Only it was metallic. And it could transform. Did that mean…

"Chu must try not scream. The doctor vill have his vay vith stabilizer servos."

It took Nightbird about a half a cycle to process what the arachnid had said. It had the same broken-monitor voice that she had heard earlier, and even spoke in the same manner. She wasn't sure if this was good news or bad news. At least it had proven one of her theories about Decepticons; they would accept virtually anyone into their ranks. Nightbird sighed to herself, one of her previous worries rendered moot. She relaxed her bad stabilizing servo, still poised upright in a very uncomfortable manner. Not because it hurt, really, more like it put strain on her gear-shaft; she wasn't exactly in the mood for a stretch.

Then she realized that the little bugger was crawling over her bad stabilizing servo and poking around. By reflex, she soon had the little thinggimahoosit held tightly in her hand, some of its appendages flailing wildly through gaps in her fingers. She brought it back up to her eye-level and gave it one of her stares. The kind that could kill you if it were possible.

"I've had enough; who are you and what are you doing to my stabilizing servo?"She wasn't going to end this with a question. The little thing in her hand stared back at her, and they seemed to be having a contest to see who could go the longest before cracking. Nightbird won.

"I Scalpel. I fix." Nightbird's gaze didn't waver, but she did cock an optic ridge to show that she didn't entirely believe the thing. "Chu let go now." Scalpel retorted. Grudgingly, Nightbird complied, extending her fingers. Scalpel began scurrying all over her hand; apparently his appendages were able to stick to flat surfaces. Conceivably this must have been another pro to being insect-like in form. She turned her palm over, so that he was 'standing' on the back of her hand, facing her.

"You're a _weird _little thinggimahoosit… you know that?" Scalpel made a face at her. Or at least the closest she could discern as a face. He didn't seem amused, almost sarcastic. They stared at each other once again.

"I am Doctor. I fix."

"_Riiight._"

"I fix cher leg. Leg is better soon. Ve must have good leg for travel."

"Woah woah, _travel? _Who said anything about _travel?_" Scalpel did not hesitate.

"New Kaon close by. Ve go to New Kaon."

"Why do you refer to us as a collective group?"

"I small. Chu big. Chu goes faster than Scalpel; Scalpel rides chu to New Kaon."

"And what makes you think I'll let you ride me like some sort of cargo ship?

"I fix cher leg. You vin good leg, I vin ride to New Kaon. Ve must keep bargain."

Nightbird thought for a moment. Even though Scalpel was very strange for a number of reasons, he had made one valuable point; Nightbird probably wasn't going to go very far with just one operable leg. Finding another 'con that would be willing to fix her up while she was still bearing the Autobot Symbol would be difficult. Though this little guy either didn't notice her Autobot Symbol or didn't much care for it.

"All right. Deal."

"Ah ah ah. Van last condition."

"W_hat?"_

"Chu takes off sticker on chest." Scalpel pattered over to her chestplate and tapped the spot where her Autobot Symbol was. Perhaps this guy wasn't as lenient as she had thought; he had a miniature Decepticon Symbol on his chest area, so of course he'd be at least moderately uncomfortable working on an Autobot. Nightbird wondered if he had noticed she was a femme yet.

But that didn't matter at the moment; this was probably her only chance to gain a 'con's trust. Perhaps this little guy had a team on New Kaon, wherever that was. If she gave him a free ride there, then he'd put a good word for her. He'd sneak her into a team the way a Decepticon would. Things seemed to be going quite well so far, anyway; wouldn't want to jinx things.

Besides, she'd been meaning to replace that blasted sticker anyway.


	3. One Half

1/2

Something was definitely wrong.

Frenzy had known it was wrong the moment he woke. Whatever was going on, it apparently consisted of being carried on the shoulder of some burly 'con. It didn't take long for him to start flailing around like mad, jabbing at whatever he could hit. He was scared, he knew, but it wasn't his own fear; it was Rumble's. It was muffled by his own panicked thoughts shooting through his processor, but he could still feel him. Rumble was terrified. The feeling wouldn't go any farther for the moment, since said 'con that was carrying him grabbed his stabilizing servos and swung him straight to the ground. The pain was too much to take, and everything went black. If luck was in their favor then the world would have stayed black for Frenzy, but, truth be told, it was not; Frenzy had regained consciousness moments before he was tossed, yet again, towards the ground.

There were stabs of pains jabbing at random bits of his tossing and turning chassis. He wasn't able to get a clear view of where he was, what with everything spinning and his vision blurred from something else. Then the ground beneath him finally flattened enough to stop his trajectory and bring him to a stop. He was left staring up at the ceiling of the cave, stalactites pointing directly at him. He heard an unintelligible bout of conversation from somewhere above him, in the direction of the light. He turned his head over to the opening of the cave, an upward slope from his resting place. He could vaguely make out a large frame arguing with a smaller one, before the latter was punched into the cave as well. It was in watching the 'bot tumble through the jagged surface of the slope that he finally realized what was wrong;

Rumble had gotten into a fight. Frenzy wasn't surprised; Rumble had always been very restless. Like Frenzy was one to talk; if he had his way, he would never have to take a stasis-nap and would just make sonic booms all day long until everyone went crazy from the terrible sound and started hurting each other, trying to pinpoint where the infernal noise was coming from. Just the thought of that usually made Frenzy chuckle endlessly like a mad 'bot. But not know. Now wasn't the time to laugh.

He turned his head to where the body had stopped tumbling around and stared at it. If it weren't for their different color schemes they would be entirely identical. Presently, however, color wasn't the only thing that differentiated them. Now, they were both beaten up quite a 'bit, (Frenzy was glad he was unconscious for most of it) that was pretty obvious. Frenzy knew that he'd be sore for about a deca-cycle with all of his dents and bruises, what with all of his circuits sparking around his wounds and the fact that he couldn't move his right arm. And this time, they couldn't just ignore it.

It was hard, but Frenzy managed to lift himself up to sit up halfway. It stretched out his ports, but at the moment he couldn't care less. Whatever had happened, it left more than a lasting impression on Rumble. He hurt more than Frenzy did, that was definitely the case. It only took a nano-klik of staring before Frenzy finally spoke up.

"What the _slag _did you do this time?"

"Egh… Nice to see you too, Frenzy." Rumble only turned his helm to look at him. Frenzy felt a lot of strain on his own helm, but he wasn't sure if that was from _his_ injuries or Rumble's. If it weren't for their injuries (and the fact that they were both exhausted) then their conversation probably would have involved more swear words.

"What does it take to get you to leave 'bots that are bigger than you _alone?_"

"Oh… Like you're one to talk?"

"At least I don't get myself in trouble while _you're _taking a stasis nap!"

"Aw, 'm sorry. Did I wake up de widdle pwotofowm?"

"_Yes!_"

"How's about I come over there and—ACK!" By reflex, rumble had started to lift himself up; itching for a fight that they both knew wouldn't do any good. That would have been good, really, to get into a fight. Do something that always happened after a fight. A sense of normality in a chaotic situation. But they both knew that a fight after a fight wasn't a good idea. Especially not now.

So they just lay there, panting and staring up at the stalactites again. For a moment, Frenzy felt almost… peaceful. The glowing white and blue crystals were what New Kaon had become famous for, anyways. A couple of these crystals and you were good to fly your ship for about a million stellar-cycles or so. Too bad they weren't doing anything for Rumble and Frenzy. They just stared back at the two undersized 'bots. The silence was finally broken by a busted sentence from Rumble.

"We're… We're both gonna die… aren't we?"

"Your fault…"

"I know."

Another pause, just staring up at the crystals.

"I don't want you to die, bro." Frenzy looked back at his twin, who just kept staring up at the stalactites. He kept himself completely motionless, just laying there. Doing nothing.

"If I die… then… you're gon' come with me… right?" They locked gazes and stared at each other. The fact that they both wore visors meant that neither of them would tell if the other had fallen asleep or anything. They could go on like this forever, if they wanted to. And right now, that was probably the thing Rumble was planning to do; just stare at something until he fragging let himself _die._

"I have to."

"Who said?"

"I did."

"Who went offline and made you boss-bot?"

"Megatron."

Rumble smiled. He would have laughed if this wasn't such a tense and loaded moment. Stubborn idiot wanted to die. Frenzy wouldn't allow it; they came into this world together, they would leave this world together. And he wasn't in the mood to die yet. He wanted to stay alive and cause a bit more havoc with his life. It wasn't fair that Rumble somehow got all the fun when it came to breaking things and getting into fights. If either of them were poster children for the Decepticons, it was Rumble. He did more things with his time, and was more willing to leave Frenzy while he was idling or taking a stasis-nap and doing spark knows what. Maybe this was some kind of life lesson. Or something.

"So what… are you planning on leaving me?" Frenzy finally asked.

"Not without you I'm not."

"Why do you even _care?_"

"About what?"

"You always leave me alone to do your own thing. I can't even hear your thoughts."

"Are we _supposed _to?"

"I don't even _know _anymore."

"Well it's not _my _fault you spend all of your time asleep."

"Maybe if _you _didn't get so far away from me I'd have more stamina!"

"If I weren't dying right now, I'd pummel your face."

"And then I'd die with you, is that it?"

"Maybe."

"I don't even _know _you anymore, Rumble."

"That makes two of us."

"You're still not gonna die."

"Yes I am."

"No, you're not."

"You're just jealous."

"Of what? The fact that you've lost the will to live?"

"As if. I've had my fun. It's not _my _fault you spent most of your life in stasis lock."

"Yes it is."

"_How!?I"_

"I think it might have something to do with the fact that we're, oh, I dunno… _twins!?"_

"So we have the same body—big deal!"

"Were _supposed _to have some sort of magical twin connection thingamajig."

"Which entitles us to _what _exactly?"

"I dunno, but I'm pretty sure one thing is me getting more stamina or something."

"Oh _sure, _blame everything on me, why don't ya?"

"Hey, it's not like _I_ was the one who got in a fight with Mr. Cranky-Plating."

"Yeah, you just spent all of your time in stasis lock."

"Because _you _leave me alone!"

"How does me leaving you alone make you sleepy?!"

"It's a twin thing."

"I'm still gonna die."

"If you're going to die, then why aren't you dead yet?"

"Because I'm waiting for you to die with me."

"Not gonna happen."

"_Fine! _Then I'll die _alone! _You're not fun anyway!"

"Oh of course, you're just _itching _to leave me alone! If you gave one diode about me in the first place you wouldn't have broken our bond!!"

"Then why don't you just come with me for a change?! If you want to be with me _so badly _then come with me to the Well of All Sparks!"

"More like the _PITS!_"

"Oh, who's the antagonistic twin _now, huh?!"_

"At least _I _still care about your well-being!"

"You think _I _don't!?"

"Shut up and _die _already!"

"FINE!"

"FINE!!"

"_FIIIINE!!"_

Rumble turned himself over, staring at the opening of the cave. There was a _huge _surge of pain that shot through Frenzy's body at the motion; either their bond wasn't as severed as Frenzy thought or it had chosen now to fix itself. This was both logical and stupid of it. Logical, because this was probably the first time in orbital cycles that Rumble and Frenzy were actually together in the same room for more than 5 cycles. Stupid, because Rumble was dying and Frenzy wanted to live. Which meant Frenzy would feel his twin brother dying and he'd have to go on with his life with half of a spark and no other half to be around to fix it. Now more than ever he hated the fact that he was a twin.

Rumble had made himself unconscious, but he wasn't dead yet. His chassis had to be gray for him to be dead. 'If a 'bot's not gray, he's a-okay'. Frenzy had taken rhymes and tunes similar to that to spark, as his way of memorization. He got the short end of the twin stick, being the one with the more emotional components and smaller protoform. He figured that, if Rumble died, he'd either die almost immediately following or fall into a very deep stasis. All perks of being the smaller twin. Slaggit.

If Rumble was going to die, then he may as well have just gotten it over with. Maybe he expected that turning off his consciousness would make his spark stop beating. Or maybe he just didn't want to be awake for his own death… was that even possible? He wouldn't know. Not until Rumble died. And then he'd be trapped in his own little dream land for all eternity, or fall into a dreamless stasis, or just die altogether. Frenzy scowled at nothing in particular, hating that Rumble would get his way whether Frenzy wanted to or not.

If they were going to die, then why weren't they dead yet? Frenzy was useless without Rumble, and Rumble had lost the will to live. What more did the universe need? What could the universe _possibly _gain from keeping two bickering twins alive, even when they both knew they were going to die? Even though they both _wanted _to die? He tried to wrap his mind around something else, something beyond him and Rumble, which could possibly be the reason for them staying alive. Motionless and trapped in a cave, yes, but still alive.

That's when he noticed the sound of pattering and a small, insectoid machine staring at him from the ceiling.


	4. Medical Issues

Medical Issues

This was turning out to be a very interesting day for Scalpel.

The former Autobot that he had worked on was keeping their part of the bargain. It let him ride on its shoulder for the trip to New Kaon, so long as Scalpel gave it the coordinates. Scalpel complied only because it meant that the Autobot hadn't merely taken off their sticker to gain a free leg, keep their part of the bargain, and then run away. It seemed that this Autobot truly wished to become a Decepticon. Scalpel had tried to wrap his mind around the concept, with little success. This was the first time an Autobot had defected to the Decepticon cause. Oh sure, there had been plenty of instances of Decepticons running to the Autobots (if his blasted old teammate Drift was any indication), but never the other way around.

So needless to say, Scalpel was moderately uncomfortable sitting on the shoulder of an Autobot. A quick rundown of their systems and he knew that the Autobot had a severe glitch in their programming. It could not feel pain. That was good and bad; good, because s/he would not have to suffer through jerking and flailing in pain while he worked on them. Bad, because that meant that this Autobot would probably be hotheaded and throw himself into battle and become severely injured, and not even know it. They'd probably come crawling back to him constantly for repairs!

Then things became amusing. Specifically with the sound of arguments from not far off after half a mega-cycle of walking to New Kaon. This seemed too far away from New Kaon to mean they were close, since New Kaon had a tendency to glow. Scalpel had no idea why, it just did. Though they were on the right track, and the city limits were close. The Autobot had no idea what was going on, but Scalpel didn't put much thought into it. Just some sort of fight or something. Those things were about as common as dirt on New Kaon.

And of course, the Autobot wishes to intervene. Scalpel lobbied _hard _against this, even going as far as threatening to slip into their processor and take control over their body. Perhaps he should have just done that anyway. He was perfectly capable, and besides; he would finally be able to discern the blasted Autobot's gender. It was becoming quite irritating not knowing a piece of information that useful. It would save him the trouble of calling it a 'he' if it was actually a 'she'. Spark, that was confusing…

In the end, they settled on a compromise; they would merely observe what was happening, and then decide on whether it was worth intervening or not. Scalpel was amused at the fight, to be honest. From what he could tell, there was one large, burly Decepticon with claws for hands and a vehicle-based alt-mode (it seemed reminiscent of a police officer's) beating a set of twins to a pulp. One of the twins was unconscious and basically taken hostage, while the other seemed to be doing everything in his power to get a hold of his twin. The twin that was doing said fighting seemed to have the ability to transform his arms into pile-drivers and cause earthquakes. This led to a very amusing fight indeed.

But of course, the fight eventually came to an end, with the red twin held for ransom tossed into the mouth of a cave and the blue pile-driver-arms twin shouting obscenities at the larger 'con. The larger one seemed to have had enough of the twins and threw the blue one into the cave as well, and limped off back to the source of the light that was polluting the atmosphere (for he had suffered his own deal of injuries himself).

So then it was time for them to decide on a course of action. Either they would intervene in some way (perhaps by attacking the larger 'con?) or they would just be on their way. Scalpel had left the decision up to the Autobot, curious as to what s/he would make of this dilemma. After all, s/he was an Autobot, and there was a very high chance that they would want to assist in some way. So he was both surprised and not at their answer.

Long story short, the Autobot had decided to make a team, and taking advantage of the twins' situation as leverage to get them to join their small team would help to solidify it. Scalpel had been reluctant to become part of team. After what happened with him and his old teammates, (especially that _traitor _Drift) saying that he had a bad experience with working in groups would be an understatement. But he ended up complying anyway. Hard to say 'no' to an Autobot with a lightsaber and an inability to feel pain.

These two weren't making it any easier.

"Will you quit crawling around me like some sort of insect!?"

"CHU BE QUIET! I KEEL CHU!

"Alright alright! Jeez, you don't have to yell…"

Like this blasted twin was the epitome of silence. If he were any louder Scalpel would have been sorely tempted to tear out his vocal processor. He considered it a miracle that his twin could put up with him. But then again, they were twins, and thus they probably had some inexplicable desire to be near each other. He didn't dare speculate on just how far the two would go to be together.

However, the fact that they were twins fascinated him. They had the exact same circuitry, body-type (which was smaller than average), and even the same face! In previous encounters he had with twins, they always had some sort of physical differentiation in their faces _at least_. These two only had their color schemes to tell them apart. He hoped they would not take advantage of that.

"What the heck _are _you, anyways?"

"I Scalpel. I fix. Chu loud. Chu quiet now."

"And what's up with your speech pattern? I mean, is there something wrong with your processor or something?" Scalpel shot a death glare at him. This blasted red twin was going to drive him crazy! "It's a reasonable question!"

"I small. Ergo, I have small processor."

"And that makes you…?"

"Small processor means small space for speech." Scalpel growled at him. Just because he was about the size of an oversized insect didn't mean he was any less intelligent! Oh sure, he had less space in his head for a proper processor, but nobody said a processor had to be only in his _head._

"Ah. Got it. So how long until you fix my bro?" Scalpel looked up from his perch on the red twin's knee. Oh right, he had a brother. He turned to where the red twin pointed, and realized why he hadn't caught him earlier; His blue armor almost camouflaged him completely in the glow of the stalactites. And he had a whole lot more gashes and wounds than the red one. Great. More work for him.

"I fix chu first."

"But he's gonna die."

At this, Scalpel took a more prolonged glance at the blue one. Most of his wounds did let out a lot of Energon, and he would be weak for at least a deca-cycle before he would be back to his normal self. He wasn't leaking anymore, though, and he was unconscious, so he seemed to be fine. Besides, his own precautionary systems were already kicking in and fixing him up on its own, so he would probably be just fine. He wasn't really anywhere _close _to dying.

"No."

"What?"

"No."

"Whaddaya mean 'No'?"

"He not die soon."

The red twin seemed dumbfounded at this. Scalpel ignored him and finished with the connectivity in his knee. Just one last little movement of this blasted tangled wire… there. Now on to the shoulders…

"But he said he was gonna die."

Scalpel had enough. As fast as he could, he went straight to the blasted twin's neck and grabbed onto a little hatch for his processor. Specifically his body movements. It didn't take long for the twin to realize what Scalpel was attempting, and he proceeded to jump to his feet and scramble around, trying to get him off. Good thing Scalpel's appendages were pretty much capable of sticking to everything. Just one little twist over here and…

Gotcha.

Scalpel then proceeded to spend the next few cycles making the red twin punch himself in the face and run into obstacles, essentially hurting himself without Scalpel having to actually fight him. Scalpel had always seen his size and intelligence as a good thing, even if he wasn't capable of forming complete sentences. Soon enough, the red twin grew exhausted and his body refused to move. Scalpel jumped off of the red twin and landed on his blue counterpart, completely unfazed by the large thud that resulted from the red one's collapsing. Unfortunately, the blue one was not.

"WILL YOU QUIT IT WITH THE NOISE!?"

"Oh, welcome to the party Rumble. I would have invited you, but I thought you were FRAGGING _DEAD!"_

The blue twin had lifted himself up to retort something, but was cut short by weakness in his arm. Scalpel had to jump off of it to avoid being crushed by his weight, relocating himself on the ground. The blue one panted, clearly still exhausted from the battle with the larger 'con.

"Oh don't give me that! You told me you were gonna die! SO DIE ALREADY!"

"I _would _if you would just quit fighting yourself!"

"And here I thought you _cared _about me! Boy was I wrong!"

"ENOUGH!!!" Clearly they were both taken by surprise at his intrusion into their argument. Scalpel glared at both of them, thankful that they had the processor capacity to pay attention to him. But only a little bit thankful. He scampered up to the blue one's face, a carbon copy of the red ones. He had caught the red one calling him 'Tumble' or something along those lines.

"Chu vas never going to die, so chu must needs to apologize for scaring brother or make truth."

"What's up with your voice?"

"SHUT UP!" Scalpel lifted his arms to the top of his faceplate and scraped against it, with his claws going in as deep as they could go. Of course, Tumble did not expect that. Scalpel kept his ground when Tumble started to move to protect his faceplate and ended up collapsing on the ground anyway. A quick glance at the red twin holding onto his own faceplate told him that, yes, their bond was working perfectly. Perhaps this 'Tumble' was merely fearful and truly believed he was going to die. Alright then.

"I fix."

"…Wha?" Tumble panted back.

"I Doctor. I fix. Chu stay still and I vill fix chu." Tumble panted for a while, and Scalpel stood his ground. He would wait to see if this 'Tumble' had anything to retort. If he would put up a fight, then Scalpel would be forced to sedate him.

"…Sorry…" This was not directed at Scalpel, but he replied anyway. Then he got to work fixing him up. In the back of his mind, he began wondering what it would be like having these two around for an indefinite amount of time.

"Chu is forgiven."


	5. Of Fanboys and Girlfriends

Of Fanboys and Girlfriends

This was the worst day ever.

Why is it that, when Galvatron finally found someone who was willing to listen to his warnings of his ancestor, the planet-eating Unicron, it was an obsessive, rabid madbot? All day he couldn't go one way or another without that Cyclonus guy following him around like a lost beast machine. Perhaps this was for the better; this could be the beginnings of that team that he'd always been procrastinating on building. After all, a group of four (the minimum for a proper War Team) always began with two people, which would later grow to four, or possibly further. Once he had one follower, he would have many more.

But then again, that didn't really take into account the fact that his first follower was _sitting on his head._ And that wasn't the first of it; this guy was so strange, he would have sworn he was on high grade. He would ramble on to him about the color schemes that a typical Decepticon citizen chose (he would argue that almost everyone was purple) or begin telling him riddles about 'pancakes'. In fact, he was doing so right now.

"Hey, can I tell you a riddle?"

"No."

"If your canoe is stuck in a tree with its headlights on, how many pancakes does it take to get to the moon?"

"Either your circuits are fried or I'm having a nightmare.

"Nope; none! Snakes don't have armpits!" At this, the insane 'bot on his head began laughing hysterically, and nonsensically. Galvatron just growled and stared at nothing in particular. Having a full-sized bot glued to your head was bound to grab people's attention, and he wanted no more than to punch the first person who approached him about this in the face.

"Ha ha, very funny. Now GET OFF OF MY HEAD!"

"No!"

"Why not!?"

"Because I'm your number one fan!"

"What am I? A celebrity?"

"You treat yourself like one!"

That didn't come from the 'bot on his head. No, that came from a new source, somewhere to his right. A quick glance and he found it; a black Decepticon, reminiscent of a police car. He was laughing heartily with his group of friends, ones that he didn't particularly care for. He had four optics that seemed to be able to look at things separately. If one eye looked one way, then another would look up, and the rest would look down. Galvatron would have taken more into account, but the 'bot living on his head seemed to have different ideas.

"Hey! You don't talk to my idol like that!"

"Is that why you have bunny ears on your head? Are you _emulating _mister 'I-think-I'm-king-of-the-universe'??"

"What if I am?" Galvatron wanted nothing more than to punch that blasted 'comedian' in the faceplate. Maybe he could head-butt him with this blasted fanboy on his head and he'd suffer lasting damage. Especially since this 'con seemed to have spikes on his head for who knows why. That would probably give both of them a lasting processor-ache, at the very least. If he didn't have to worry about him getting his own head torn off by the fanboy, he'd probably have tossed this guy off of him five cycles ago.

"Jeez, what are you two, _sparkmates?" _

"NO! What made you think that!?" It was Galvatron that voiced his opinion this time, leading only to an uproar of guffaws from the police-car 'con and his posse. Galvatron was seething by now. Next thing he knew he was yelling out his thoughts at the black-and-white 'con and the weight on his head wasn't there anymore. He didn't even pay attention to what he was saying; as long as he got his point across.

"So, what, you gotta femme er something? Cuz until then I'm not gon' back down, crazy."

"Oh, I have a femme! She's better than any femme _you'd_ ever manage to grab?"

"Who? _Thunderblast? _That's a laugh!"

Galvatron used his peripherals quickly. What the heck did he just say!? Stupid! What kind of a lie was that? What, was he trying to _impress _the slagger that had just insulted him? NO! He had no business to impress anyone! He was better than all of them! He was the king of the universe, set to rule over all Decepticons! ... As soon as Unicron came along… Now where was a femme that he could use? C'mon, there has to be at least _one _femme in the Oil House! There! There was a vague femme-shape just towards his right; it looks like she had just come into the Oil House. He could vaguely see two other small shapes next to her, but that didn't matter now; he needed to save face in front of this slagger, he couldn't bear to be less than anyone.

"There she is! Hey there, it's me, Galvatron!"

"What?" Galvatron wasted no time in running right up to her and wrapping his servo across her shoulders. The femme seemed stunned, either unable to comprehend what was happening or simply taken off-guard by this random mech running up to her, treating her like they were sparkmates. She even wriggled a little bit while Galvatron made a large bellow to the police-con about this. He brought the femme closer to his chassis, enough that her audio receptors could pick up his private comm. message.

_Shut up and play along!_

_What exactly are you doing?_

_Pretend we're sparkmates!_

_What!?_

"Hey, you sure that's a femme, Galvy?" Cyclonus piped up, dragging himself upwards from his earlier position of being sprawled out on the floor next to the seat Galvatron had previously occupied. The femme next to him seethed angrily, and he decided to use this anger to his advantage. Anything to get the police-con to stop disrespecting his rightful ruler and king!

"Of course she's a femme, you idiot! How dare you insult my femme with your ignorance! Her gender is clear as the crystal that makes New Kaon!"

"Then where's her rack or something? I mean, aren't femmes supposed to have racks?"

"_NO!_" It was the femme that spoke up this time. Galvatron smiled and gave her a wink; this was perfect! She was treating this as thought it were a test of her worth as a soldier or something. And if she wasn't, then she was a very good actress, and wonderful at getting into character. Once this was all over, they could just go on with their daily lives and forget this ever happened. Not like they were obligated to stay together after this, right?

Right?

Well that was about as incorrect as Galvatron could get. In fact, he was so incorrect, that he thought that the police-con would just go back to laughing with his own posse of people. Pits, the thought that the femme was the only one that came into the Oil House! He should have paid more attention to the small forms that were on either side of the femme, because apparently, they had unfinished business with the police-con. Hence why the police-con was surprised to see them.

"Hey! I thought I tossed you two into a cave yesterday!"

"YOU DID, YOU SON OF A GLITCH!" It was all Galvatron could do to keep himself from covering up his audio receptors at the sudden noise. This guy was _loud!_ And he had a potty-mouth. This clearly warranted the intrusion of the blue mech that was next to him. The blue 'con covered up the red one's mouth and held him tight, apparently sharing a private comm.-link. He quickly noted that the two were twins.

"Hey! You two shrimps don't talk to me like that!"

"You and what army?" The blue one challenged. He immediately switched his forearms with pile-drivers, readying himself for a fight. Galvatron unconsciously shifted into a fighting stance as well, though at the time he couldn't decide why. Maybe it was because he was sick of this four-eyed Decepticon and his blatant mockery of his rightful king and ruler! Or maybe it was just pent-up anger from having Cyclonus glued to his head.

Whatever. His processor wasn't in the mood to take everything in properly. The last thing he clearly remembered was punching someone in the faceplate (Cyclonus?) before his memories all became one big blur after another. All he knew after that was this; he got really angry, fought against the police-con (whose name, he later learned, was Barricade) and his posse, and ended up having to take him and the three other 'cons he was fighting with to his Dorm in the nearest Housing Building. Oh, and he also apparently became the second-in-command of a team.

It was around then that Galvatron lost consciousness.


	6. Elephants Never Forget

Elephants Never Forget

"Why are we doing this again?"

"Silence! We do not want to give away our position to anyone!" Nightbird hissed at his brother for what felt like the millionth time that day. Rumble didn't like being told what to do, himself, and he knew full well his twin didn't either. Only now the feeling was a bit more pronounced and clear than it would have been, say, three days ago. Before they were thrown into a pit and fixed by a little scampering insect thing and forced into a team. Ever since then, Frenzy had been making absolutely certain that Rumble didn't get too far away from him, either as a way of fixing their twin bond thing or simply because he was a little sparkling and couldn't stand being away from Rumble anymore. And while Rumble would never admit it out loud, Frenzy actually made a good call by doing that.

And no, Frenzy, he wasn't going to say that out loud anytime soon.

_You don't have to be mean about it._

_Yeah. Tell that to Mr. King of the Universe over there._

His twin chuckled, trying to keep quiet. He failed. Why was he so loud anyway?

_Because I can't hear myself either way._

_It was your own fault!_

_Says who?_

_Says your twin brother! Now zip it!_

_We're not actually talking, you know._

_It's going to take me a while to get used to this._

_Maybe your memory will actually come back._

_Oh come on, it wasn't any better than anyone else's!_

_Yeah it was!_

"Rumble, Frenzy, do you understand?"

Rumble had been thrust from his mental conversation with Frenzy back into the real world. Nightbird and Galvatron were kneeling down to hide themselves, and Scalpel was resting on Nightbird's shoulder. They were all staring at them intently, boring into their very sparks. Frenzy panicked somewhere in the back of his mind. They weren't paying any attention! Now what were they going to say? He was worried about what their new leader might do to them. After all, they had never even heard of her before! If there was a 'con and you never heard of them before, then there was a very good chance that they had gotten rid of everyone that knew them before.

"Yes."

_WHAT!? Why did you say that!?_

_Quit yelling! You're loud enough as it is!_

"If you know what we've been doing, then tell us." Galvatron sneered at him. Rumble took in a deep breath.

_Oh spark please don't tell me you're going to—_

"We were all walking through this deserted hallway that Nightbird shoved us through and sneaking around all ninja-like and then some guy came from the corner and he looked over here and then Nightbird was all: 'GET DOWN'

And then Galvatron went: 'You cannot tell me what to do!'

And then Nightbird: 'Yes I can, because I am the leader of this team and you are merely the second-in-command.'

And then Galvatron: 'I don't know why I'm even with this team!'

And Nightbird was all: 'Well too bad, because you are and now we're here.'

And Galvatron asked: 'Why are we here anyway? We're doing just find here on New Kaon!'

And Nightbird said: 'No we are not; we need a spaceship.'

And then Frenzy said: '_Why?_'

And Nightbird got all tense and stuff and stared at us for a while before Frenzy repeated his question and Nightbird told him to be quiet. Then Nightbird told us:

'I want to see if our team is capable'

And then _I_ was all: 'of what?'

And Nightbird said: 'stealing a spaceship.'

And me and Frenzy were all '_O-o-o-oh' _and then We started sneaking around underneath the floorboards and crawling through stuff and I was really uncomfortable and I told Scalpel that he was a lucky little slagger because he was tiny and he could maneuver much better in places like that and then Nightbird shushed me and Galvatron started muttering to himself and then Frenzy yelled at him to be quiet, which made Nightbird go all:

'Be silent! We do not want to let the authorities know we are here!'

And then Frenzy was all: 'what authorities?!?'

And then everybody shushed him, because he's so fragging loud, so I shut him up again and we crawled the rest of the way through that tight space between the platform-ground of the New Kaon Ship Storage Bunker and we were all 'Ah' and sighing and stretching because we were in this little gray bubble thing in the center of the courtyard where they park all of the spaceship and stretching and sitting down to rest. And then Frenzy was all:

'Why are we doing this again?'

And then Nightbird shushed him again and then—"

Bang.

Everything went black.

When Rumble came to, he found his 'team' staring down at him, with the enormous beady eyes of Scalpel staring blankly into him, seeming to analyze his very existence. Then he crawled off of him and Frenzy helped pull Rumble back up onto his feet. He had a headache the size of Cybertron! Everyone was talking too loud and too fast, but he managed to remember what they were saying either way. He could recall them later.

They had a spaceship to hijack.


	7. Ludicrous Speed

Ludicrous Speed

"Alright, you got all of that?"

"Yup!"

"Not you Rumble, we know _you _remember it. Does anyone else?"

"Sort of…"

"No."

"I refuse!"

Nightbird felt like slapping her head. Time was running out! If they were going to steal that ship they were going to have to do it soon! And if not soon, then NOW! What was keeping these people from cooperating with her? It wasn't like she was a bad leader—they didn't even give her a chance to prove herself! Was it because she was a femme?!

"_I _think that _I_ should lead this raid! I'm much more inclined as a leader than you are!"

"After pretending that I was your girlfriend and making me lose face in front of just about every capable mech in the Oil House, I don't trust you with a_ cherry bomb!_"

"That's unfair grounds!"

"I'd hate to know what fair grounds would be for you." …wait… what was that?

"I don't have time for this!"

"Chu be quiet!" Nightbird felt some prickling on her shoulders, and snatched Scalpel before he could jump. He let out a small squeal and she hurriedly shushed everyone in there. Galvatron gave out a small murmur of complaint, and Rumble and Frenzy had that glazed look over their visors that they seemed to be having increasingly today. Quickly she pushed everyone down from their little blue glowing orb they were hiding within.

"Someone's coming…"

Everything was still, and everyone's optics were focused on what was outside. This thing was like a one-way chalkboard; you can see what's outside, but they can't see what's inside. Hopefully. Nightbird hadn't even been a Decepticon for very long, but she was fairly certain getting caught wasn't going to be pretty. There was this big feeling of having to turn back and get somewhere safe. She'd have to ask Scalpel to get rid of that. If anything, they had to make sure that they fought, and fought hard. She quickly analyzed what her teammates had as weapons;

Galvatron had a trident, and he was at least one-and-a-half times bigger than she was. He'd no doubt be a good opponent, seeing as so far he seemed to be very agile. After all, she didn't even notice him coming up by her in that Oil House. And she was a ninja. Either that meant he had some kind of super speed, or he was just really good at keeping quiet. When he wanted to.

Scalpel was in a class all of his own. There was just about nothing that this guy couldn't do just by standing on something; those appendages of his could tear anything apart just by him walking along and trying to find something to manipulate. And he was pretty good at tearing things off to get to where it hurt. She was glad he was on her team.

Rumble had those pile-driver arm thingies, and those weird antennae-whatever things on his (and Frenzy's) head could pick up just about anything. This also seemed to account for his super-memory that he had just recently revealed to them. Frenzy, on the other hand, had a different arm-mold, which seemed to turn into something other than pile drivers. She didn't know what yet, but considering that he had a very loud voice, it might have had something to do with sound.

Well, they'd figure out soon enough, since right now there was some 'con walking right in front of their little bubble thing. She tapped them all on the shoulder to direct their attention to her, and gave a small smirk. Then, to help make her intentions clear, gave a thumbs-up sign. Rumble and Frenzy smirked, Galvatron rolled his optics but slackened his shoulders, and Scalpel lowered his optic-lids—whatever that was supposed to mean.

_One…_

Nightbird crouched and brought her body upwards a bit more, preparing herself to shoot out of the bubble.

_Two…_

Everyone else got into their own personal fighting stances.

_Three…_

Then Nightbird wondered what the bubble was made of, and if it would collapse under their force.

Too late now.

_GO!_

It was weird going through the bubble. The thing seemed to be made of some sort of alien substance—when they went through it, they pretty much just… went through it. She didn't have much time to contemplate what that bubble was truly made of, so she tried her hardest to forget about it. Autobot curiosity would get the better of her one of these days. So she just focused on the first living thing she saw and swung at it with her lightsaber. It left a big gash in the 'cons chassis, and tossed him onto the ground. Nightbird put a stabilizing servo on his chest-plate.

"Where the frag did you come from!?"

"I do not have any time for any of your questions! Now, give me the access codes for a battle-ready spaceship _and _promise that you will _not _alert any of your cohorts or leaders and I will consider sparing your life." Nightbird got very close to the 'bots helm, close enough that, if the faceplate weren't in the way, she would have bit his helm off. The bot seemed a bit scared, but defiant all the same, even with her hand on her lightsaber stabbed into the ground just inches away from his arms.

"Oh yeah? I'd like to see you try!"

"Very well then." Nightbird sprung back up and held her hands behind her back, deactivating her lightsaber and stepping off of the 'con, calmly as though she were headed off to see the sunrise. The 'con seemed completely perplexed by this, but got up all the same, frantically and almost losing his balance by the time he got up to his full height. He was about the same size as Rumble and Frenzy, it seemed. And she just noticed that he had one big lens-like cannon as his chest. What was she, a magnet for chest-armed people? First Warpath with his cannon ON his chest, then Rumble and Frenzy with speakers built INTO their chests, and now this guy with a lens-like cannon FOR a chest?

"Didn't think this through, did ya, missy?"

"At least someone can recognize a girl when they see one. So far every other mech I've found had to look twice to tell if I was female. I wonder: does that mean that _you _are a femme?" That did it.

"You come here and say that to my face!"

"_Make me!_" To be honest, Nightbird was enjoying this. It was nice to be juvenile for once; she could definitely understand why Frenzy acted so juvenile all of the time. It had its own charm to it. In fact, it was enough to get one person angry beyond comprehension without even doing anything. It was quite a useful tactic if you had a trap planned out for the person charging at you.

The 'con rammed himself right in her way, obviously blinded by rage. Nightbird bent her knees a bit, and, right when he was about to make contact, jumped over to the right on one leg, leaving him in an unwarranted position between stopping and tripping. Without hesitation, Nightbird kicked him in his core, her shin-guard keeping her foot from making contact and from damaging his lens any more than it already was. She extended her still-bent leg and pushed him over back to where he started, all the while keeping her hands behind her back.

The kick was stronger than she expected, however, and ended up sending him all the way to the wall beyond where he was pinned down; which also happened to be where Galvatron was mercilessly jabbing in the direction of another 'con with his trident. The lens-con was being thrust all the way at his head. Galvatron seemed to notice this before anything too damaging happened, though, and managed to writhe himself underneath where the 'con was supposed to hit. In short, the 'con hit the wall (and bore a hole through it) while Galvatron ducked out of the way and kept jabbing at his enemy.

Nightbird took another moment to watch what he would do. He knew how to take advantage of a situation, that was for sure; the second 'con seemed to be preoccupied with what happened to his teammate, and paid more attention to the newly-made hole in the wall than his enemy. Obviously, it left him open to Galvatron's trident swiping underneath his stabilizing-servos and knocking him downwards.

Well, not much more time to waste. She ran up to the wall with the hole, focusing on keeping her balance, in case she needed to kick or punch at something else along the way. This turned out to be a good call, since a third bot seemed to be stumbling in her direction. There didn't seem to be anyone else from her peripherals, so she just stopped and punched him in the back of the head. She immediately followed this up by turning him around and slapping him in her face with the side of her servo, jabbing him in the abdomen with her elbow, and finishing it off with a hardy swipe of his stabilizing servos, flooring him and knocking him unconscious.

It didn't take very long after for her to realize that Scalpel was controlling his movements, adding to how he wasn't resisting. This also accounted for why he popped angrily out of an open hatch on the bot's servo, complaining in his screechy broken-monitor voice about how she completely ruined his focus. Nightbird didn't apologize. Instead, she walked over to the hole in the wall and plucked the lens-chested 'con from his resting place on the other side (which, luckily, was just an endless expanse of rocks). He was unconscious, though, and it took a hardy slap to the face to wake him up.

"OW! What was that f—?"

"Give me the access codes to a battle-ready spaceship _right now!!" _The 'con stared at her, but only for a moment.

"Alright alright fine! But I won't guarantee you'll make it out!"

"Why? Are you intending on running straight to your superior and alerting him to our commandeering, or is there a built-in alarm system that will trip the moment we leave the station?" she asked, again getting up-close to his face. The 'con was terrified by now; she could see it in his tense facial features. Either he would tell her or she'd have to ask another on e of his teammates. The buildup that he was trying to force down from the sheer fear he was feeling clearly did no good to further anyone's agenda. But she wasn't going to repeat herself.

"The-there's a-an alarm system, yes…!" He finally squeaked out.

"Then deactivate it!" She gruffly shook him a bit, thankful that her arm could withstand the strain of holding him up. He shrieked for a moment, before starting to go on and on about how he was too young to go offline. She did not have any time for this! She craned her neck over to the side and found Rumble pounding the slag out of a fourth team-member's faceplate with his pile drivers. He seemed to be making quick work of him, and the fifth and final member of the opposing team seemed to have fallen at the hands of Frenzy, who was currently loitering around with nothing to do. Perhaps now she could find out his worth in a fight.

"Frenzy, think fast!!" She barely gave him the chance to look up and focus on what was happening before, once again, tossing the 'con in her grip over to Frenzy. It only took a moment before a bright red laser beam shot straight through the 'con's shoulder, quickly slicing it off before he jumped out of the way and left the 'con to skid to a halt on the ground. The laser was pretty strong; Nightbird could say that; it managed to get far enough to leave a whole in the part of the wall nearest her that didn't have a hole in it. If it weren't for the wasteland beyond it there was a pretty good chance it would have alerted someone else to their presence.

Nightbird wasted no time. The other battlers had stopped fighting in response to the laser fire, and now all optics were on her as she approached the lens-'con. She snuck a glance over at Frenzy, whose arms were in a strange airplane-like form. She quickly deduced that, whereas Rumble had pile-drivers for arms, Frenzy had these lasers. She made note of that to remind herself that Frenzy, while he may not be very confident and thus not fight as much, still was still a force to be reckoned with. As was the rest of her team. Once again, and for the last time, she put a foot onto the 'con's chest, getting her face up to par with his.

"Now give me the access codes."


	8. Spring Cleaning

Spring Cleaning

Scalpel kinda liked it here.

The ship _was _pretty nice; Scalpel couldn't complain, really. The medical bay was really big and had a bunch of bric-a-brac and other tools for medical hoo-ha. Scalpel wasn't really into using all of those special equipment—he'd much rather get up close and personal when he fixed something. Or made it better. He always knew a bit more about what was needed to fix something or other than the guy that he was fixing. Hence why there were some occasions when there were a few… extra pieces after fixing something. But he didn't think too much of it; if they actually needed it then he would have put it back!

But there were some things in this med bay that he… wasn't entirely sure about why they were in here in the first place. For one thing there was a _shrink ray _of all things in here. That he could not understand one bit. Once Nightbird set him down on one of the computer panels in the med bay he immediately scampered in the shrink ray's direction. He wasn't sure if Nightbird was still in the med bay or not, but that didn't really matter.

First thing he did at the shrink ray was rummage around until he found a weak enough panel for him to pry through. It took a short while, but he managed to get through rather quickly. He wanted to know how the thing worked, just to see if it was actually some kind of big medical device and he just wasn't looking at it properly. There were a lot of times when 'cons would pick up dust cleaners thinking they were guns and be sorely humiliated by the time they tried shooting something.

It only took one glance at the inside wirings of the machine to realize that it was, in fact, a shrink ray. Though from what Scalpel could garner, it wasn't a properly functional shrink ray in the faintest sense. The wires were all mismatched and not calibrated properly. Probably the work of some crackpot inventor that got abandoned after it didn't work. Scalpel scoffed.

"Stupid 'con. Not good vith wire. Machine not vork correct. I vill fix." With that said, Scalpel hurried on to work on the Shrink Ray. He couldn't really help himself very much—he was restless by nature, always wanting to move some part of his body in some way or another. If he didn't he thought he'd probably explode from all of the pent up thoughts burying themselves in his processor. Or something. He wasn't sure why, but he knew that he had to move and that was that. Besides, fixing the Shrink Ray would give him occupied until Galvatron or Frenzy flew the ship into a building and they had to get into another fight. Until then, he would be content just to fix up these wires.

Of course, that was his _intention._ But apparently, the Shrink Ray was _so _miscalibrated that it wouldn't have even done what it was built to do. Instead, it was calibrated into the exact opposite of a Shrink Ray in two ways. One in that it didn't even have ample power to create a focused beam of light to find a target to shrink; it would just fizzle and short circuit with energy. Two in that it made whatever it came into contact with _grow._ And that, kids, is why Scalpel was currently stuck in a little chasm in a shrink ray, staring into the corner of his own med bay.

Worst. Day. Ever.

Of course, this was bad for the obvious reasons; nothing to do, no way of getting out, and an extremely small space to move and scutter about. Plus, Scalpel didn't _like _being big. If he wanted to be big he would have made some sort of suit or another chassis and transfer his spark into it. Though that wouldn't work because his spark was abnormally small, and it would never sustain such a large chassis. But that was beside the point; he didn't _want_ to be big and he didn't _like_ it.

There were several options for him to consider. One would be to just stay here and do nothing, stare at the wall until either the effects of the Non-Shrink Ray wore off or he decided to extinguish his spark. That wasn't favorable. Another option was to contact his teammates through some manner. That wasn't favorable either, though perhaps Nightbird would assist. But that wouldn't be fair; after all, she was trying to be a Decepticon, and leave her Autobot past behind. If he immediately went to her for assistance, then that would be a mockery on how the Autobots were, stereotypically, psychotic goody two servos with a superiority complex and an oppressive, bureaucratic government. Nightbird wasn't anything like that.

But he was still stuck in a mailbox. Was that even the proper term for his placement? Mailbox? He had only heard the word once, and from a strange audio feed he heard from a stray satellite. Or perhaps it was some primitive race trying to make contact with the universe. Scalpel couldn't blame them; space was so big, there _had _to be life on other planets _somewhere._ That was one of the main reasons 'bots would study astronomy, quantum mechanics, mechanics in general, and just about every other form of space science sassafras.

His wandering thoughts were interrupted by the sound of somebot talking to himself as though he were talking to another. It didn't take long for him to realize it was those annoying twins again. Great. Oh well, listening to them talk was better than squirming inside a crevasse in a Non-Shrink Ray. Scalpel couldn't make out what it was at first, but then he managed to pick up small bits and pieces of their conversation.

"W_hy _are we doing this again?"

"Because, _Frenzy, _as the resident twins of the team, we must bug the living daylights out of every 'bot we come in contact with. Starting with Scalpel."

"Why Scalpel?"

"Because he is _small_ and _we…_ are also small. But he is small_er _so _we_ have _dominance!_"

"Oh really? You know what I think?"

"What?"

"_You_ empha_size_ your _words_ too _much._"

At this point, the door to the med bay opened up and they strode inside, jabbering on and on to each other like no one's business. Scalpel had a hard time differentiating which one was talking, since they had more similarities between them than any pair of twins he had ever met. But either way, he could deduce one thing; they were both really, really, _really_ obnoxious.

"You're just jealous!"

"Of what? That you have a big, fat, hard head?"

"_NO. _Because _I_, unlike _you_, have an efficient, _crippling _weapon!"

"You have pile-drivers! All you do is make holes in the ground! Besides, Rumble doesn't really fit you very well. We may as well call you _Captain Emphasis!"_

"You're such a _geek!_"

"HEY SCALPEL! WHERE ARE YOU!? I WANTED YOU TO KNOW THAT RUMBLE AND I ARE HERE TO ANNOY YOU!" Frenzy finally bellowed out. Scalpel was especially thankful for the two appendages that managed to squeeze out of the crevasse with him, since he _still_ wasn't used to Frenzy's overpowering voice. They poked more than his normal servos did, but anything was worth blocking out sound from _him._

"You idiot! What kind of a 'sneak annoyance tactic' is that supposed to be?"

"Does a 'sneak annoyance tactic' even _exist_?"

"No...! Yes… MAYBE!"

"Well whatever you wanted to do it doesn't look like we're going to do it any time soon."

"Oh yeah? Why do you say that?"

"Scalpel's not in here."

Well they took their sweet time noticing! Scalpel took this as a chance to squirm around a little and let them know of his presence. Though he didn't really get very far; he only managed to get his two free appendages _really_ sore, but that was about it. Stupid mailbox! Or crevasse… whatever! He didn't care what it was, it was just slagging _stupid_. He wished he was small again. He _really_ didn't like being big. Especially because his size didn't seem to matter when it came to getting people to notice him.

"Hey look! Scalpel's already got a graph up!"

"Oh really?"

"Yeah! See!"

"It's not marked though. Wonder what it means?"

"_I _know what it means!"

"No you don't!"

"I do too!"

"Uh, hello, _twin bond, _I can hear your thoughts! You don't know what it's about!"

"Yes I do!"

"Then tell me. What is this mysterious graph about, oh genius swami twin brother of mine."

"Ha ha. Very funny. As you can plainly see, this graph here represents _upness._"

"_Upness?"_

"Precisely."

"That's not even a word!"

"It is too, and you can plainly see that that is what this graph represents, because it has a line going up."

"What if it's going down?"

"It's not. It's going up."

Scalpel was getting annoyed with their conversation. He tuned the twins' bickering out, trying to figure out a way to get them to realize his presence. As was customary for him when he thought, his free appendages began to twitter around and move, trying to help him develop the ideas in his head. Then the side of his appendage hit a hollow spot on the shrink ray, and made a loud _CLANG._ It wasn't hard to hear Frenzy scream. After the echo ceased, Scalpel could hear Rumble's strained words cut the silence like a razor blade.

"Gogh! Get… off me!" There was a loud crash shortly afterwards, Frenzy obviously hitting the ground hard. Scalpel couldn't make out what had happened, but he was a bit shaken after that. Perhaps he could use this to get their attention? Hmm… if he used his voice as well, to make as much noise as he could… He had to get the rest of his appendages out first.

"What was that!?"

"That was _me _getting you off me before my back cracked!"

"NO not that! I mean that weird clang sound…"

"It's probably just Scalpel trying to mess with us. Now where are you ya little creepy-crawly?" Scalpel did not respond; he was too busy getting his fourth appendage out of the crevasse.

"Wait, Rumble! I don't think you should do that." There was a short pause, and Frenzy's voice came again, only a little less strongly. "Well… y'know, what if Scalpel… Okay look, he would have shown up by now to get us outta here, right?"

"Right."

"So _why hasn't he?_" Rumble didn't respond, which apparently left space for Frenzy to speak again, "I might be crazy, but I think… something must have happened to Scalpel, and now he's a _ghost_ haunting the med bay!"

"You're right."

"Really?!"

"You are crazy."

It was about now that Scalpel had finished getting his appendages out. This was actually quite clever of him; if he managed to scare the two, they would either leave or try to get him out to stop the noise, and if he didn't, then he would just keep banging and banging until he squeezed himself out. Not bad for someone who had a scattered processor.

"Alright Scalpel, get outta wherever yer hiding before Frenzy gets thrown into the airlock!"

"Hey!"

BANG. Scalpel banged his appendages again and again the surface, getting slippery footing in various places and basically just scrambling himself out like a spidery explosion. Coupled with a few grunts and strains, there really wasn't very much progress in getting himself out by his own means. But he tried anyway, banging and clashing and pulling and groaning and overall struggling to get himself out. Then he stopped, unable to continue; it took a lot of energy! Though luckily he didn't have to go on with it very much more, since the shared face of Rumble managed to rear its ugly blue head right in front of Scalpel. Scalpel merely glared at him.

"You know that Shrink Ray makes you look fat?"

"Don't ask how! Just get me out mailbox!"


	9. Memoirs of a Frenzy

Memoirs of a Frenzy

Now what was he supposed to do?

It kinda felt weird, actually being awake for most of the day. Before he would be really tired, but now he didn't seem to have any way to get rid of his extra energy. Probably some kind of side-effect of fixing that bond thingamajig they had. He hoped he would get used to it, seeing as so far it was really, really odd. Time he usually would have spent doing nothing increased more and more, and he had to find some way to get himself doing something. Rumble, on the flip side, was actually feeling tired most of the time, and started to doze off or stare into space at random moments. Currently, he was either asleep or daydreaming. Either way, Frenzy wasn't going to coax any excitement out of Rumble any time soon.

Another problem was that there wasn't very much in their surrogate 'bedroom'. So far all that it had inside were two berths (one above the other) on the wall and a computer. Not that they exactly _had _stuff before. Usually they (read: Rumble) would go outside to do something fun, or otherwise. But, seeing as they were in a spaceship and flying to Spark knows where, that wasn't exactly an option, now was it? And besides, it was somewhere around, say, _midnight _according to his internal clock, so he couldn't really go somewhere within the ship to get something to play with. All he really had was a stupid computer.

Well… a computer _was _one of the most versatile things in the universe. He may as well see what he could do on a computer, since he never actually used one before. But still, he was a bit skeptical about it. Whenever he watched someone work on a computer, it was almost always for business stuff, not entertainment. They would just write things and send them and have video-communications with each other. That usually sounded very boring to him.

Oh well. Maybe it would help him fall asleep.

Lifting himself off of his berth (his was the one closest to the ground); he snuck over to the computer system and turned it on. Then there was a rather loud turn-on chime, and he jumped. Usually things like this wouldn't bother him—he loved noise almost more than Galvatron loved himself (which was saying a lot). It was just that A) he didn't expect it and B) Rumble could have woken up and given him a swift pummel to the face. Luckily, he didn't.

He looked back at the screen. It looked like it hadn't been used in a while, though precisely how long Frenzy couldn't tell. All he could really tell was that it wasn't exactly the newest computer on the block. Ah well. He scanned the desktop screen for a moment, reading the icons given to emphasize what that particular whatsimafloosit did. He didn't really understand computers, after all. To him, this could all be written in some kind of scribbly non-readable text and it wouldn't make a lick of difference.

Then one thing caught his eye. It wasn't precisely worded as such, but it was near enough that he could understand what it was. It was a Writing Software. Frenzy had heard of 'cons that chose to write as a hobby or as a time-killer, and some had even had their works saved onto data-pads and copied for others to read. Of course, no credits were gained in it; it really was just a hobby. But enough people wasted some of their free-time writing into Data-Pads or what have you that he had noticed several stores advertising said data-pads. Most of them were called Data-Pad Novels, while other, more artistic works were called Data-Poems, and a third title for them was either 'rubbish' or 'junk'—depended on whether the speaker was sophisticated or not.

Frenzy wondered why 'cons would go to such lengths to write. What was it that made it so interesting? Was it the movement of their hands writing? He knew how writing worked—you touched to screen and thought words, and they would appear on the screen. If your thoughts wandered, however, the system would break them up into little clumps and you could choose which one was most relevant and get back on track. He had seen this only once, however, and he wondered if he got all the facts right.

Finally, his curiosity got the better of him. He opened up the writing software, pressed his hand onto the screen, and began to use it. There was but one large, white strip in the center of the screen, the rest of it a dull beige color that he hated. It would be much better as a rubbery red, he thought. Then the background color changed, to the very rubbery red that he wanted it to be. He blinked, and stared at the screen for a moment more. He could get used to this.

He went back to focusing on the white stripe and let his thoughts wander for a bit. What was he supposed to write about? He hadn't really gone through very much, and certainly not enough to start writing about it. All he did was sleep for most of the time, and now he was having a case of insomnia. Jeez, what did he have to do to get anything to go right, chew someone's head off? Nothing ever seemed to go right for Frenzy, he was unlucky. He had heard a rumor once that a pair of twins were destined to be unlucky. Was that true?

That's when Frenzy started to notice that the words on the screen were the ones that he had just thought. All of his thoughts and feelings were now written down in words, onto the large white stripe that dominated the screen. That's when he realized what he was going to do. He wasn't going to write a novel or a poem or any other publishable piece of literature. That wasn't what he needed, and not what he would be good at doing, he realized soon after. No, he wasn't going to do any of that.

Instead, Frenzy was going to keep a journal.


	10. Transition

Transition

If this was any more boring, Rumble's head would cave into itself.

Frenzy would have scolded him for thinking that when;

Nightbird and Galvatron were arguing loudly and incessantly about who knows what, and

Scalpel has demanded that they help fix the med bay after leaving him in the 'mailbox' for five megacycles.

And yet, he was still bored out of his mind. They had been flying aimlessly for about three Solar Cycles now, and everyone had just recently realized that they had no idea where they were going. Wow. Talk about an enormous blunder on their part.

Galvatron, whom Rumble had soon realized was slagging _insane_, was arguing that he should be the leader of their team, because "If I were the leader I would actually plan my takeovers out so that I know what to do next!", but Nightbird didn't agree with that because "I was the one that led our fights, and I have more experience with fighting Autobots!", but Galvatron didn't believe her and blah, blah, _blah._

If you asked Rumble, Galvatron should have already given up. He had seen what Nightbird did, and it was not at all like anything he had seen before. Granted, he had never been in a fight with many people (contrary to what Frenzy thought; he could count all the people he physically fought with one hand), so he wouldn't have a very wide scope, but he knew enough that most 'cons had this battle plan: beat the opponent down until you managed to squish their remains like a bug. Nightbird wasn't like that at all.

For one, Nightbird somehow managed to make her small size an _advantage_. While most 'cons with her size and stature would resort to becoming entrepreneurs, she knew exactly where to hit a 'con that was bigger than her. Sometimes she didn't even _hit _her opponent! She would just dodge, twist, block, or other defensive maneuvers until the 'con tired themselves out or hurt themselves. Of course, that was only a small fragment of her battle style; she knew full well how to take advantage of a bad situation and make it crash upon her enemy instead of herself. Where the slag she learned all this, Rumble hadn't the slightest idea.

On the other servo, Galvatron fought… oddly. He was so fluid and streamlined that sometimes it was hard to tell where he was, and that didn't take into account his sheer _speed_. Try hitting him in one place, he'll grab onto your weapon, swing you off of it, and then start poking and prodding you with your own weapon until you went offline. All in less than 30 seconds. Rumble also had the sinking feeling that, if placed in some kind of liquid, Galvatron would be night unstoppable. Probably because he transformed into a small spaceship that also resembled a water vessel…

_HOLY SPARK._ Rumble probably should have been paying more attention to the actual argument, because the _weirdest thing just happened_. Right there, stuck to a miscellaneous table near the observation controls by a Sai Dagger, was Nightbird's servo. And she _wasn't_ screaming. _Or_ writhing in pain. _Or_ complaining in _any way_. The three of them just stood there, staring at Nightbird's hand. Everything was deathly quiet, and became so unnerving that Rumble was half tempted to scream to fill the silence. Then Nightbird _pulled it off_.

It was around then that Rumble felt sick to his core, almost as though he were on the verge of spilling his Energon right then and there. It wasn't easy to get the dagger out, and it took a very strong grip and a few seconds of teetering the point around _in her hand _before she managed to pull it out. The shaking made some Energon spill out, which effectively made Rumble have to cover his mouth to keep from puking.

It was like something from a Horror Vid! S-she wasn't normal! He was so creeped out he barely registered the fact that Nightbird had lifted up her servo (which now had a bleeding hole in the palm) and started testing out her fingers to see if they could still move. Two of them could, but the others robotically curled inward, prompting her to ball her hand into a fist.

"That's going to take a bit of a fix-up." She said nonchalantly. She lowered her hand and returned the Sai Dagger to Galvatron.

"Y-You can keep it!" He reassured frantically, stepping back and lifting his hands in some kind of attempt to get away from her. Nightbird seemed amused by his fear, as though being able to treat _a slagging hole in your hand _like receiving a vid-mail from a tax-collector was _normal_. After today, Rumble was absolutely certain he would be scared of her for the rest of his lifecycle.

"I'm going to the med-bay to get this fixed. Galvatron, since you seem so very interested in proving your worth as a leader, I suggest you plot a course for us and discover which path we will embark on while I am away. Do not disappoint me." And with that, she walked out of the cockpit, leaving Galvatron and Rumble there alone.

"WHAT THE SLAG WAS THAT!" Rumble exploded on Galvatron. He felt his fear and disgust quickly transition into confusion and rage.

"DON'T YOU DARE YELL AT ME, WORTHLESS PEASANT!" Galvatron retorted even louder, shutting Rumble up. Galvatron soon went into a rant and managed to get Rumble to (still grouching) comply with his wishes. He took command of the observational systems whilst Galvatron plotted a course to a planet where he had apparently been to before. After a while, it became very apparent that Galvatron was actually very capable of being a leader and some kind of talent for driving ships. Rumble was impressed…

He still hated him, oh, that wouldn't go away. But right now, fighting wasn't going to get them anywhere, no matter how much he wished he could just start pounding Galvatron's face in. For now, they would just have to comply as much as they could. And who knows? Maybe they'll iron out and become one very well-operated team. Maybe even a family unit!

And they would be a very hardcore family, at that.


End file.
